A protest, an election and a contest to frame them

4:05 PM,
Feb. 21, 2014

Written by

Scott Mooneyham
OPINION

A day before tens of thousands of people gathered for a protest march in the state capital, the head of the state Republican Party, Claude Pope, called a news conference to conduct his own protest.

Pope told reporters that elected Democratic office-holders like U.S. Sen. Kay Hagan and Attorney General Roy Cooper should condemn the key organizer of the march, state NAACP head William Barber, for his inflammatory rhetoric.

"We can have our disagreements on policy," Pope said. "But if Democrats want to have a seat at the table, they need to learn how to turn down some of that rhetoric and ...